President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono on Monday (10/1/05) met with the ambassadors of Britain, Japan, Libya, Singapore, Sweden and the US to hear their views on how to resolve the separatist conflict in Aceh, said a senior government official.
"The government continues to strive to find a peaceful solution to the problem while handling the aftermath of the Aceh quake and tsunami," State Secretary Yusril Ihza Mahendra was quoted as saying by state news agency Antara.
He said the president asked the ambassadors of Sweden and Singapore to encourage GAM leaders living in exile in the two countries to support the government's initiatives to bring a lasting peace to Aceh.
"The Indonesian government actually wants to resolve the Aceh problem directly with GAM, but the obstacle is that its leaders are in Sweden. So we have asked the Swedish ambassador to pass on this message," Yusril was quoted as saying by detikcom online news portal.
Peace offers
The Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) on Monday called on the government to prove its commitment to ending the conflict with GAM. "Indonesia's central government must take concrete measures when offering peace deals to GAM," Kontras coordinator Usman Hamid was quoted as saying by detikcom.
He said the government should: give GAM access to humanitarian aid; offer amnesty to all rebels; and release five GAM peace negotiators presently serving jail sentences of between 12 and 15 years.
The five rebel negotiators survived the devastating December 26 earthquake and tsunamis as they had recently been transferred to jails in Java, whereas hundreds of other rebels detained in Aceh were killed when the gigantic waves destroyed their prisons.
Hamid said the government should seek to establish a new ceasefire agreement with GAM leaders living in Aceh, rather than the exiled leaders residing in Sweden.
He also said future peace talks should take place in Aceh to improve the government's understanding of the real situation in the province. "This is only a matter of efficiency, as holding talks overseas would reflect a lack of psychological concern for the disaster victims in Aceh."
Hamid proposed that Japan be appointed to as a third party mediator for future peace talks, as the Japanese economy is "dependent" on trade with Indonesia.
There are hopes that Yudhoyono will be more successful than his predecessor Megawati Sukarnpoputri in bringing peace to Aceh. Yudhoyono was Megawati's chief security minister when Indonesia signed a short-lived truce with GAM in December 2002.
Mediated by the Geneva-based Henry Dunant Center, the Cessation of Hostilities Agreement initially resulted in a steep decline in violence in the resource-rich province, where GAM has been fighting for independence since 1976.
But the level of violence soon escalated, with each side accusing the other of violating the terms of the pact. Megawati's administration abandoned the peace deal in May 2003 and launched a massive military operation aimed at exterminating GAM.
Since then, the military claims to have killed about 2,500 rebels, while many more have surrendered or been arrested. Rights groups claim many of those killed were innocent civilians.